


Stuck in Rewind

by BonesAndScales



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Emotional Hurt, Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, Everything Hurts, Hannibal is a Mess, M/M, Will is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 19:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17413055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonesAndScales/pseuds/BonesAndScales
Summary: "May I get dressed?""You may not."Will arrives too late for the Red Dinner. He still finds Hannibal.





	Stuck in Rewind

**Author's Note:**

> Look they love each other dearly but you can’t throw an indecisive jerk at an impulsive idiot and expect it to end well.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

Rain pours over Baltimore.

Baltimore could not care less, deep in sleep. Blissfully unaware.

Dr Du Maurier's house is silent, save for Will’s heels clacking on the floor. It creaks softly under his weight, old wood moaning after weeks, months of disuse. Their plea drowns under the sound of the rain striking the roof and the windows. His shoes leave circles of rainwater in their wake. Droplets slide down his raised arms, down his clothes, slip off to die on the floor.

He advances slowly, gun in hand, from one room to another. A shiver crawls up his spine. The house is cold, the furniture covered by white cloths and a thin sheen of dust. Long deserted.

Will knows Hannibal is here. This is the only place he can go to lick his wounds.

Will stops in his tracks. Amidst the din of the rain, a distinct sound reaches him. He strains his ears and steps into the hall. The sound grows louder.

Water running.

Will follows it. The water leads him to the back of the house, where a thin sliver of light escapes from a door left ajar. He pushes the door open, slips inside the room. Bedroom. Empty. The door of the adjoined bathroom is open, letting the light flood into the room. The floor is strewn with clothes; blood seeps through the carpet and smears the pristine tiles.

A silhouette moves in the shower.

Hannibal.

Will's breath hitches, heart leaping in his throat. A fresh wave of anger washes over him and for a second he is tempted to shoot through the shower screen. He does not. He needs answers. He ventures deeper in the room, stays outside the circle of light casted by the lightbulbs over the bathroom mirrors. He holds his breath, counts his heartbeats.

The water stops. A towel hisses. The door of the shower creaks open and clicks shuts, and a long shadow crosses the floor to the bedroom. One footstep on the rug. Two. Three.

Will lifts the gun.

“You lied.”

Hannibal stops in his track, the towel held to his cheek catching stray droplets of water. He turns to look at Will, naked, dripping—nowhere near vulnerable. A wide, purpling bruise paints the expanse of his back. Smaller ones cover his arms and stomach. Jack’s last gift. Something like surprise dances in his eyes. Something like grief. Something like anger.

“You said you prefer sins of omissions to outright lies. I omitted,” he says, his tone deceptively calm. “You lied.”

 _Freddie Lounds_ , Will thinks and brushes aside. She does not matter. Not her. “Where did you hide her? Same place as Miriam Lass? Maybe you brainwashed her as well to keep her docile?”

There is no surprise this time. Hannibal let Will find Abigail—offered her—sedated, left lying on the couch of the sitting room. The small bottle and syringe had been abandoned on the floor, not too far from her prone form.

Will had crouched down beside her, shaking, breathless, unable to believe his eyes. He had reached out for her, searched for a pulse, cupped her face as gently one would a newborn—with relief and reverence, and the unshakable fear of causing harm. His hand had slipped over the scar where her ear should have been. For one terrifying second he thought her dead, a prayer answered—time reversed, a teacup restored—only to be torn from his grasp again.

She had blinked. He froze. She was not sedated; paralysed. Her eyes had found him, pinned him.

 _Your fault,_ they had screamed, _All of you._

“I’m surprised you didn’t stay with her,” Hannibal says, tearing him from his thoughts, “Didn’t you miss her?”

“You're never going to see her again,” Will hisses through gritted teeth.

“Sole custody?”

Will does not bite. “We’re both letting her go. She's suffered enough because of us.”

“She doesn’t have anyone else in the world, Will,” Hannibal says slowly, a tone that makes Will's skin crawl. “If I hadn't intervened, the trial would have taken from her anything her parents left behind. She would have ended up alone and destitute.”

“So you were going to provide for her? Make sure she has no other life beside the one you offer?”

“I never forced her hand. I didn't kidnap her and lock her in a cell, contrary to what you seem to believe. Abigail stayed with me of her own volition.”

“She had nowhere else to go, you saw to that. You convinced her of that. You don't do coercion, Dr Lecter,” Will echoes Dr Du Maurier's words, “Only… persuasion.” A skill well-honed, mastery speaking of decades of practice. It had worked on Will, on Jack, on Alana, on everyone that ever crossed his path. But the thing with manipulation is, like any trick, the moment the subject becomes aware, the illusion collapses. An idea grows in Will’s mind, roots and branches reaching out and twining around everything else. “Abigail knows, doesn’t she? She found out what you are so you had to keep her close. You made sure her only choice was to either follow you or die.”

“Quite a lot of assumptions,” Hannibal says, raising his eyebrows, “You put her on a pedestal and let yourself be blinded by her manipulations. And when the scales fell and your ideal of her didn’t match the reality, you rejected her.”

Will snarls at the condescension. “Because _your_ ideal matched the reality? She is not your daughter, Dr Lecter. She is not your apprentice.” And because Will has to hurt him as much as he has been hurt, “She is not your sister.”

Struck a nerve.

Hannibal tears his gaze from Will’s, lowers the towel to fold it. The movements are mechanical, almost absent minded as he composes himself again. The gesture is made to look deliberate, but the feigned nonchalance is more shield than weapon. Entirely naked in front of Will, Hannibal’s armour has never been thicker.

“May I get dressed?”

“You may not.”

A beat, two, three as Hannibal folds the towel neatly. There is a tension in the line of his shoulders Will would have relished—for its ordinariness, for its humanity—had it been any time but this very moment.

“Put down the gun. We both know you won’t pull the trigger.”

Will lets out a small huff, mirthless, cutting. “Wanna bet on that one?”

“What of your sweet fantasy of killing me with your hands?” The towel is discarded on a bag on the floor. Will can see clothes inside, but Hannibal does not reach for them, as instructed. It is the last pleasure Will allows himself, this brief moment of power over a man he once thought untouchable. Their eyes meet. “You're hiding again, Will.”

“ _Hannibal_ ,” Will drawls out, acid on his tongue, “We both know the moment I lower the gun you'll break my neck.”

“So much confidence in my intentions. Remind me again how long you remained blind.”

“You’re not as good as you think you are, doctor. I saw through your deceptions while my brain was on fire.”

“You accuse me of deceiving you. What of you? Through everything I still let you know me. See me. A rare gift I gave you.” Hannibal’s eyes bore into his, the walls down in a blink. Sienna reds gleam in the dim light of the bathroom. “But I suppose it was worthless in your eyes.”

“There is no future for us.”

“There is. There was. If only you’d allowed it.”

“If only _I_ ’d allowed it?” Will tightens his grip on the gun, lest his hands start trembling. “I gave you a chance. I gave you a fucking chance,” he hisses. “Why didn’t you take it? Why didn’t you leave?” His voice gives on the last words. He presses his lips together, takes a deep, shaky breath. “Why did we end up here again?”

Amidst the storm of anger, a sense of triumph sparks in Will at the pain flickering in Hannibal’s eyes, bare to him at last.

“I couldn’t leave without you.”

“Yes, you could. You were going to. Or did you intend to come by my house before you jumped on a plane?” Hannibal would have only found the men that came to arrest him then. It would have been easier. Or maybe not. It would have only been more blood on his hands. On their hands. “You were going to leave without me.”

“I gave you a chance too. A chance to disappear, to drop the façade, to leave this lie behind us and start anew somewhere Jack Crawford and the FBI would never find us again. You didn’t take it.”

“There was no place for me in that life. Only for an ideal.” Maybe they would have made it work, maybe they would have managed to weave a new lie, strong enough to last until they settled. And then, months, weeks, days would have pulled at the edges until it snapped. Nothing sustainable between the two of them. “There was no place for us.”

Hannibal opens his mouth, an answer held in a breath, closes it. His throat clicks softly as he swallows it. Instead he asks, “Why did you call?”

“I…” Will stops, hesitates. He has just been denied a truth. He will deny one in return. “I wanted you to run.” _And to run away with you_ , hangs lifeless between them.

“Wanted.”

“Wanted.”

Will lifts the gun higher, levels it with Hannibal’s head. This time Hannibal does not look away. He holds Will’s gaze, blinking away the shine in his eyes. They search for something in Will. For the first time—for the last time—Will lets him find it. And it hurts. It hurts him. It hurts them.

“Does your heart race, Will?”

Will swallows around a lump in his throat. “Does it matter?”

“Last time you didn’t answer truthfully,” Hannibal says softly, for once not a trace of accusation in his voice. Only regret and the crushing weight of opportunities too many times missed. “Right now, as you hold my life at the your fingertips, does your heart race?”

Will holds his breath, the burning in his eyes mirroring Hannibal’s.

The safety clicks.

“It doesn’t.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> One thing I learned about writing fix-its: I shouldn’t write fix-its.
> 
> I’ll leave it to you whether Will’s last line is a lie or not.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated :D Haven't moved to pillowfort but you can still come scream at me on [tumblr](https://bonesandscales.tumblr.com).


End file.
